This thesis comprises a study of all the records of the archbishop and chapter of Canterbury that purport to belong to the period before the Norman Conquest. The original plan had been to include a full diplomatic analysis of each document; but partly for reasons of space and partly because such a register makes heavy reading, it was decided that it could more usefully accompany the critical edition of the texts to which I hope to turn next. Instead the thesis is an attempt to throw light both on the charters and on the history of the church of Canterbury by studying them together. For in a period when our knowledge is severely restricted by lack of evidence, the study of diplomatic and of wider historical issues should not be divorced. Whilst it is true that diplomatic, like any academic discipline, can be self-defeating if its range of vision is too narrow, there is also a need if we are to understand our earliest English historical records for basic studies of Anglo-Saxon diplomatic using the principles and methods that have long been practised on the Continent. [Continued in text ...]